


on that faded love

by blithelybonny



Series: Suitehearts [16]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Domesticity, Falling In Love, Friendship, Kissing, Multi, Polyamory, Sexuality Is Confusing But That's Okay, how do you know when you love someone?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-06-04
Packaged: 2020-04-08 00:55:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19096447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blithelybonny/pseuds/blithelybonny
Summary: Benji breaks up and comes home.





	on that faded love

**Author's Note:**

> This is my sweet son Benji. He is a great Captain, an excellent friend, and undeniably huggable. Love him, pls.
> 
> Thank you to my co-conspirators forever, ilu both.
> 
> Title from FOB's "heaven's gate", which still makes me cry embarrassingly an entire year later.

**September 2018**

“Baby are you, like, not feeling okay?”

Benji drags his gaze up from Kelly’s tits to her eyes, stills his rhythm, and breathes out a shaky exhale as his dick slips out of her. Usually it’s gotten with the program by now, but tonight apparently it’s just not going to happen for him. Which is—fine really. Well, it’s fine for him anyway. It’s probably not all that fine for her.

“Sorry,” he offers, as he maneuvers himself over to her side. “I can finger you instead?”

Kelly looks into his eyes for a moment that feels really long and really intense, and then she sighs and sits up. She’s frowning, but not in a mean way or a sad way, but more like she’s thinking through something tough and not really liking it. “Corey, I just don’t think—”

“—it’s okay,” Benji cuts her off because he doesn’t want to hear it, maybe, because he’s heard it before, or he’s given a version of it before. At the end of the day, it’s always the same thing, and he’s just kinda tired of his relationships ending before they really get a chance to go anywhere.

“I mean, I like you a lot. You’re so cute and you’re sweet,”—she’s reaching over the side of the bed for her panties and shimmying into them, she’s not looking him in the eye—“and we’ve had some fun, but I just don’t see it working out, you know…” Kelly trails off, hands him his boxers, and sighs again. “Long-term,” she finishes. She’s still not looking at him.

His hair flops in his face when he pushes himself up so that he’s sitting on the edge of the bed. Benji hides behind the curtain of it as he slips back into his boxers and jeans. His Schooners tee-shirt might be in the living room still. He—really doesn’t want to go get it. “Um,” he manages, “that’s okay.” But like, god, how embarrassing. There was way too long a pause between what she said and his answer. He’s such a—he’s so dumb sometimes, fuck.

Nelly would yell at him for bad-mouthing himself if he was here. Benji didn’t even say it out loud, but Nelly would know somehow. Nelly’s like...really smart, especially about brain stuff.

Kelly’s standing right in front of him when he finally looks up. She smiles softly down at him, and it’s nice? But it’s also kind of—there’s something weird about her smile, and Benji really doesn’t know what exactly it is, but it’s not like he’s going to have much time to figure it out. “Sorry,” she says, as she reaches out and sifts her fingers through his hair. “You,” she laughs lightly and tugs just a little too hard, “need a haircut.”

“Yeah, probably,” he agrees. He’s not going to get one though. It’s gotten really long. It reaches his shoulders, and he’s actually kinda thinking of just letting it keep growing for a while. He doesn’t have the playoffs excuse anymore obviously, but like, he just likes it, is all. He likes it longer. And Miley likes to braid it when he’s around, and if it’s not long enough, then the braid doesn’t stay nice.

Kelly smooths her thumb between the furrow of Benji’s brows, and as he closes his eyes and leans into the touch, she sighs again. “You really are such a sweetheart,” she murmurs, before she slides her hand down the bridge of his nose and over to caress his cheek.

“Okay, I’m just gonna…” Benji trails off and lets her gently drag her nails behind his ear and under his chin. She keeps them longer, but they’re also soft, manicured really nicely, and it feels better than it should probably. He’s supposed to be mad at her for breaking up with him or upset with her or something, but— “I should go,” he manages.

“Yeah,” Kelly replies, and there’s that weird thing in her smile again that makes Benji frown when he opens his eyes again and sees it.

She goes to the door while he detours into the living room where his hoodie and tee-shirt indeed were left behind. Her cat is stretched out on top of the tee, which is—fine. She can—he’s got like a hundred Schooners tees. Benji snags his hoodie off the arm of the chair and zips himself into it. It smells like Parse’s cologne, and he buries his nose in the side of the hood for just a second before he leaves.

\-- -- --

Benji’s not sure when this became his normal. It happened slowly, he knows. Like that thing of where you put a live frog in the pot and bring it to boil without the frog even noticing, kinda.

Nelly is stretched out on Benji’s bed, wearing Aces sweatpants and an unexplainable Utah Jazz hoodie that gapes at the neck, and Parse is flopped on top of him and working his dick too slowly for it to actually feel all that good. Although Nelly’s mouth is slack and he’s panting, so maybe it does feel good actually.

Maybe it’d feel nice to have Parse’s hand on his dick instead? Benji could get in the middle of them, maybe.

He’s been there before, smushed in the middle of them after some game or another or any day during the off-season when the weeks blend together in a haze of booze and napping and shenanigans and laughter and just kinda—feeling _comfortable_ in a way he doesn’t always. Cuddling with Nelly is an every waking (and sleeping, actually) second kind of thing, to the point that it feels weird _not_ to have Nelly clinging like a koala. But Parse is more skittish, like his cats, and so it feels a little bit like victory when Parse lets himself relax against Benji’s side and tips his head onto Benji’s shoulder. Nelly shuffles in closer, and Benji can feel Nelly’s breath warm against his neck, while Parse idly drums his fingers against Benji’s belly, and it feels— it feels— Benji just likes it, is all.

But it’s never more than cuddling when it’s the three of them. Sometimes Nelly jokingly plants these big, wet, silly smacking kisses on Benji’s cheeks or lips, but they’re just for a laugh. It’s Nelly and Parse that are fucking.

Benji walks further into his bedroom. He sits down on the edge of the bed and watches from closer. Parse twitches his head a little so he can peek out from behind his own hood. His eyes are silvery-grey, pretty and dark. The small bit of Nelly’s freckled skin that Benji can see is flushed. Nelly’s eyes are shut tight, but Benji knows they’d be pretty and dark too.

“Heya, bud,” Nelly sighs. “You’re home—ah fuck babe!—home early.” His eyes don’t even open, and Benji would wonder how Nelly knew it was him, except, well, probably none of the other guys who have keys to Benji’s house would just wander in and sit down to watch Nelly and Parse fuck.

He’s really not even sure why he’s doing it, except that he’s feeling kinda weird. Kinda vulnerable maybe? Not sad about Kelly or anything, even though he definitely should be sad, or well, actually, maybe that is what it is?

Parse stops moving his hand in Nelly’s pants and Nelly whines a little. “Lisa kick your sorry hockey butt to the curb?” he asks.

“Kelly,” Nelly corrects quickly.

“Right, right, sorry,” Parse says, but he doesn’t sound all that sorry really, “Kelly. Kelly kick your sorry hockey butt to the curb?”

“Yeah,” Benji replies with a shrug, but then his face crumples up and he has no idea where it comes from, but suddenly it just hurts so much and he has no idea why because they weren’t even dating for that long ( _they’re never dating for very long_ ) and it’s not like he was in love with her ( _he’s never in love with any of them_ ) and—

“Oh, uh—shit…”

Now Parse sounds sorry.

Benji’s looking down at the bedspread where it’s all crunched up under Nelly’s legs, and he wants to smooth it out so it’s more comfortable for them, and like, he should really probably just leave them alone and let them fuck in peace. And then maybe once they’re done, they’ll come and find him, and he can just get in the middle of them, and they can all watch some dumb show or something, and it’ll feel really nice—

“Hey, shh, shh, bud, it’s all good,” Nelly’s saying, low and even and soft. His hands cradle Benji’s face and his fingertips are pressing in and circling behind Benji’s ears, and the motion draws a soft whine from somewhere deep in Benji’s chest. “Talk to us, B.”

“I could, um, wait, until, uh, when you’re—”

“—nope, right now,” Nelly interrupts.

Parse is plastered up against Benji’s back now, and Benji’s not exactly sure when that happened, but his arms are wrapped around his waist, and Nelly’s hands are still soft and soothing on his face, and it’s warm, and like, it feels like how he always thinks it’s supposed to feel when you— like the way Parser and Nelly look at each other sometimes when one of them says something dopey and sweet instead of just their normal chirps—like they can’t believe how lucky they are that they get to be together.

“I don’t—I’m not...like, I don’t think I—” Benji inhales and exhales sharply, closes his eyes, tries not to get mad at himself for not finding his words ( _he’s never really been good at finding his words when it matters and maybe that’s why no one ever seems to want to stay_ ) “—how come it’s so easy for you guys?”

Nelly doesn’t stop moving his fingers, but his gaze shifts to over Benji’s shoulder, catching Parse’s eye. “I don’t, uh, know if I know what you mean,” he says.

“I mean like you...like how you guys are just…”

Parse’s knees press into Benji’s sides as he settles so he’s not at that weird angle that puts too much pressure on his right hip. “Like how fucking gross we are?” he says, his lips brushing right up against Benji’s temple.

Nelly huffs out a laugh. “We are pretty fucking gross, babe. Is that what you mean, B?”

“You’re definitely gross, yeah.” The weird feeling is still settled in Benji’s stomach, but a giggle bubbles up at that, that he can’t stop, especially when Nelly gives him a scandalized look. It chokes off again, though, because Parse maybe sort of gets what Benji is trying to say, but hasn’t said it right either. He inhales shakily and breathes out, feels Parse shift a little again behind him to turn his nose in to nuzzle at Benji’s hair.

(He wonders if he smells like sex or if he still smells like Nelly’s shampoo.)

“Is it...do you mean,” Nelly tries again, “like how, uh, I don’t—”

“—you’re in love,” Benji interrupts. “Right?”

Parse gasps and clenches his fingers in Benji’s hoodie. At the same time, Nelly easily says, “Yeah totally.”

“What does it—” Benji pauses, swallows hard, and tries again, wincing at how weak it comes out, “—how do you know?”

“I don’t—”

“—he makes me happy.” Parse is the one to interrupt this time. His words are muffled by the back of Benji’s neck, and his hands are still clenched, and somehow it feels so good to feel so pressed in by him. Benji isn’t sure why, but he’s also not going to move when he feels so good, so comfortable in this weird cradle of Parse’s body and Nelly’s hands still there on his face, holding him up. “Even when I’m sad,” Parse continues, “or pissed off, or pissed off _at him_ , or tired, or...or whatever else. He just—he makes me…”

“Go on,” Nelly whispers, after Parse trails off for a too-long moment.

“Please,” Benji adds, hoping it doesn’t sound too much like he’s begging.

Parse exhales shakily—Benji feels the warmth of it through the worn cotton of the hoodie—and then slides his hands forward to fold over Benji’s chest in a tight hug. “Before I, uh, before I met Travis, there was this...um—it felt like there was a big hole in my chest.”

Benji knows who that hole was shaped like, and he tips his head back a bit, enough to make Parse nuzzle in a little more. Nelly’s hands slide down a little to Benji’s neck and stretch back so he can touch Parse too.

“But Nelly, he, uh, he just—he pushed his way in and he,” Parse chuckles a little, and it sounds wet, and Benji’s chest aches with that same strange feeling he’s trying to put a name to, “he just found this way to fill me up with...with, uh—fuck, man, I sound like I’m talking about fucking—”

“—please keep going,” Nelly pleads; it sounds like he’s dying a little bit, but it also sounds like he’s been waiting his entire life to hear the exact words Parse is trying so hard to get out.

“ _Oh,_ ” Benji breathes out, suddenly, because he knows the ache. It’s longing. He wants—he _wants_. Nelly’s too focused on Parse, though, to notice, and Parse now has his face so pressed into Benji’s neck, he doesn’t think Parse can tell that he’s tensed back up.

It’s quiet again for a long time, all three of them balanced on the edge of the cliff waiting for one to take the first plunge.

The first thing Nelly ever said to Benji, back when they were just Travis and Corey, was to ask where he could get a haircut. Benji remembers awkwardly giving Nelly the name of a barbershop he’d had to google because he usually just let Annie trim his own hair down for him whenever it got too scraggly.

He remembers when Nelly showed up to that first team-building party at Annie and Soup’s place, with a freshly-shaved undercut and a bottle of really, really nice vodka. Nelly had plopped himself on the couch between Eggsy and Keef and then slowly but surely toppled over onto Eggsy until Eggsy laughed and started scritching at the shaved part of Nelly’s cut. The next morning, Eggsy had texted Benji to tell him to keep an eye on the new guy. _kid’s a party monster. and maybe kinda you know_ , he’d written. But the thing was, Nelly hadn’t drank a drop of that vodka that night—and Benji didn’t know what Eggsy had been talking about because wanting to have your head scritched seemed pretty normal to him.

The first real thing Nelly ever said to Benji was later that same day, when Nelly showed up at Benji’s place, with a suspicious-looking bruise on his neck and a bottle of somehow even better vodka. Nelly had plopped himself on Benji’s couch, carefully set the bottle on the coffee table, looked over to a bare stretch of wall near the fireplace, and said, “You could fit at least two dog beds over there, buddy.”

It ended up being three, but they had to turn them longways.

Benji studies Nelly’s face now as Nelly stares at Parse. He looks young. Benji always forgets that Nelly is younger than him. His personality is so big, his presence is so huge—Nelly’s fearless in a way Benji will never be.

Except for maybe right now.

“Travis,” Benji says quietly. Travis, not Nelly, because he knows it will get Nelly’s attention. Knows it will tell Nelly how serious Benji is. “Would you kiss me?”

Nelly blinks at him like he’s taken a particularly brutal check into the boards. Behind him, Parse’s body stills, but Benji can feel the way his mouth spreads in a smile against Benji’s skin.

“I think I—” Benji starts, cuts himself off to take another hopeful breath, and begins again, “I know what Parse is trying to say.”

Parse squeezes him around the middle, and it feels like a blessing.

“Please,” Benji then adds, so soft he isn’t even sure it was aloud. “Please would you kiss me?”

Nelly’s hands slide back to cup Benji’s cheeks in a way that makes it seem like he didn’t even realize he was doing it. Or like he—he looks surprised at himself for just a moment, before he smiles so wide and bright, looking at it feels like how winning the Cup must feel. It’s like looking at the sun, except Benji knows there’s no way he’ll ever get burned.

“Oh, buddy,” Nelly whispers, as he leans closer, as he tips forward only to rest his forehead against Benji’s own. “Oh, oh, do you even—God, _God_ do you have any idea—” He’s shaking his head slowly, and it feels strange, the way their skin rubs together, but he’s smiling so hard.

“Show me,” Benji says, closing his eyes and tilting his face up.

He’s seen Nelly kiss someone probably a thousand times since they first met: hooking up with someone on a night out after a good game, grabbing Parse and manhandling him in while they both laugh and laugh and laugh, or the slower version of that, when they’re both more in that sexy mood where they get intense-eyed and it’s slow and breathy and Parse’s hands shake a little where he’s holding Nelly’s cheeks. He’s always seemed like a really good kisser from the way that whoever he’s kissing either pulls back and can’t really say anything for awhile, but they get that small little stunned kinda smile? or they just full on head into Nelly’s bedroom to have sex. But either way, Nelly has just always seemed like someone who knows what to do.

It’s so different, being part of it.

Nelly slides his hand down and drags his thumb over Benji’s bottom lip before his fingers dip lower and tilt Benji’s face up a little further. He noses in along Benji’s cheekbone, brushes against Benji’s nose in a butterfly kiss, and then finally, _finally_ presses his lips to Benji’s own.

Benji goes pliant under his hands, like any weight that had been left on his shoulders disappeared. He sags back in Parse’s hold when Nelly gets a little closer, and parts his lips just enough that Nelly can slot his in line. They fit—shit, they fit so perfectly. Nelly’s tongue dips out a little and slides against Benji’s and Benji can’t hold back a whimpery noise that he might have been embarrassed about except that it just happened and it feels good and he can’t possibly feel bad, not when he feels so _safe_.

“Fuck me.” It sounds like it was punched out of Nelly, when he pulls back enough to look Benji in the eyes again. “Oh buddy, seriously do you even know?”

“No, I, uh, I don’t know,” Benji replies before he starts laughing. Giggling, really, and like he doesn’t think it’s sexy _at all_ , but he can’t help it?

Parse starts laughing behind him, right in his ear, and after a second Nelly’s laughing too.

“Fuuuuuuuck,” Nelly says again, laughing through it this time, as he starts petting over Benji’s hair. “Benjibabe, I just—you’re so—I just never thought, and now, fuck me, I can’t believe—”

“Believe it, baby,” Parse says for Benji, shifting up so that he can get a hand on the back of Nelly’s neck and drag him close again. “Feels good, yeah?”

“So fucking good,” Nelly says, at the same time that Benji says, “I’m really happy.”

“Me too,” Nelly then says quietly, smile going small and soft and kinda bashful which is a super weird expression to see on his face, but it looks good on him too. He dips in and kisses Benji again, soft and intense, and pulls a sigh out of him from somewhere deep. “God, babe, you wanna— you wanna?”

He could, maybe, Benji thinks. He thinks maybe it would be nice to get Nelly’s hands on him, stroke his cock maybe while Parse kisses him. Or maybe he could try to give Nelly a blow job. He knows Nelly’s got a huge dick because, well, he’s got eyes and Nelly loves being naked almost as much as he loves wearing ridiculous clothes, and it’s maybe a little daunting for his first time, but he could still try, maybe, and maybe Parse will get the assist? Or maybe he could just watch Parse and Nelly together like he does sometimes—he does really like that, and he knows they really like it.

Nelly’s pushing his hoodie off his shoulders, but he stops when Benji doesn’t answer right away. “Babe?”

Maybe he could just give it a shot—he can’t know if he’s going to like having sex with a guy if he doesn’t actually try it.

“Corey,” Parse says in his ear. “It’s okay.”

“I don’t know if—” he cuts himself off, swallows against a sudden lump in his throat, and begins again, “I mean, I don’t think I—” Benji cuts off again when Parse nips gently at the back of his neck, laughing at the way it tickles and squirming. “You guys can, I mean, you go back to what you were doing, I don’t, um, I don’t—” Parse gently kisses the back of his neck this time and it ruffles Benji’s hair “—I don’t think it’s the, um, the same for me? Like it, uh, like it is for you guys, but um…”

“We don’t have to bang, buddy, if that’s what you’re trying to say,” Nelly picks up—and he doesn’t sound disappointed or angry or sad or anything. He just sounds fond? “If you’re not ready or you’re not into it, that’s okay really. I’m still...fuck, babe, I’m still so...so…” and he trails off, smiling so brightly.

Benji nods, rather than answers. He doesn’t think he could explain it even if he really tried, but the nicest part is that he trusts Nelly gets it even without the words. He’s so smart. Parse is so smart too. 

Fuck, he loves them.

\-- -- --

Benji’s watching Nelly’s puppers run around the backyard early the next morning, when Parse joins him on the porch. He slips his arms around Benji from behind and presses his face into the spot between Benji’s shoulder blades.

“Is he freaking out a little?” Benji asks, when Parse doesn’t say anything and Nelly doesn’t join them.

The motion of Parse laughing vibrates against his back. “Not freaking out.” Parse goes then and pulls out a chair from the patio table, drops unceremoniously into it. “He thinks he might have made last night up, though, and figures if he stays in bed, he won’t have to face the fact that it was fake.”

“It wasn’t fake,” Benji says earnestly. “It wasn’t—”

“—I know, buddy.” Parse sighs gustily, and the smile that comes to his lips is the soft one he gets sometimes. Benji’s always liked that one on him, and it’s nice to see it directed his way. “And he knows it too, he’s just being...well, he— he’s been wanting you for a really long time.”

The first time Nelly brought the dogs over, he’d introduced them all like they were people and laughed for five minutes straight when dog-Benji nearly bowled them over in his haste to get up on the couch. “Aw, bud, get down,” he’d admonished, but he’d been laughing too hard for it to sound like any kind of a real command. 

Dog-Benji had just did that thing that dogs do, where they _whuff_ and lay down, settling in and shutting his eyes for a nap.

“It’s okay,” Benji had said—because it was. He’d never had dogs before (he’d had a couple rabbits as a kid, but that was so not the same kind of energy), but it had been kinda nice. Made the place feel homey in a way. But maybe that had just been the way Nelly had gone over and found himself a spot on the couch too, then beckoned for Benji to join them.

He’d known Nelly for something like four or five days at that point.

“He named his dog after me,” Benji then says, as he joins Parse at the table.

“Yeah, I...I knew that actually,” Parse replies, far away kinda like he’s remembering something.

Benji smiles then, feels it tugging at his cheeks, it’s so wide. He looks out over the water. The wind is kicking up a little because it’s supposed to storm today, so the waves are starting to lap at the shoreline a little faster. He likes this place a lot, his home. Their home, maybe, if they want. They all already spend so much time here, it might as well be theirs.

Ruff barks suddenly and the three dogs come racing up from yard into the patio area, just as the sliding glass doors open to admit Nelly, who’s carrying a tray with three mugs of coffee on it.

“So domestic,” Parse chirps.

“I’m an excellent provider, babe,” Nelly answers him, as he sets the tray down.

“Maybe if you’d _provided_ some of that caramel macchiato creamer I know Benj has in the fridge for me,” Parse mutters under his breath, but clearly purposely loud enough to be heard, from the way he’s smiling as he takes a sip. “Oh, hah, sorry, babe,” he adds, after he swallows.

“I know you, Parser,” Nelly says quietly.

Benji reaches for his coffee mug and finds it to be the exact correct shade of tan that means he’s got the right amount of cream in there. He then reaches out and takes Nelly’s hand in his, squeezes it once, and laces their fingers together, just because he can. And because of the way it makes Nelly close his eyes and smile.

“Yeah?” Nelly says, after a moment.

Benji nods. “Yeah...yes.” It feels so good to say, so he says it one more time, bright and shy and true. “Yes.”

**Author's Note:**

> Follow us on our tumblr and feel free to ask us all the things about [Suitehearts](https://omgcp-suitehearts.tumblr.com/). :D


End file.
